"Khaty Xiong writes a penumbra poetry. In Poor Anima, lyric and narrative intertwine to form a site where “blacknesses trade spaces with each other, extensions/of shadow and smoke.” Xiong’s poetry is also a sacrificial poetry, both in the sense that it knows and performs ritual, and in the sense that it gives itself up, completely, to currents that it perceives but can’t tame. Don’t be tricked into thinking that Xiong’s limpid language is the result of uncomplicated thinking. These poems are deeply strange, deeply courageous, deeply beautiful. They “grow back the mysteriousness passed on/through the exodus we sprang from.”